PARIS, JE T’AIME

Written and Directed by:
Olivier Assayas, Frederic Aubertin, Gurinder Chadha, Sylvain Chomet, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Isabel Coixet, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuaron, Gerard Depardieu, Christopher Doyle, Richard LaGravenese, Vincenzo Natali, Alexander Payne, Bruno Podalydes, Walter Salles, Oliver Schmitz, Nobuhiro Suwa, Daniela Thomas, Tom Tykwer and Gus Van Sant



Francine: Thomas Listen. Listen. There are times when life calls out for a change. A transition. Like the seasons. Our spring was wonderful, but summer is over now and we missed out on autumn. And now all of a sudden, it's cold, so cold that everything is freezing over. Our love fell asleep, and the snow took it by surprise. But if you fall asleep in the snow, you don't feel death coming.

With the sun shining brilliantly on a quiet Sunday that is just about to fully wake up, love can be felt in the soft breeze that sweeps past my feet and can be seen in the smiles of the people I walk alongside. It is the perfect day to stop off for croissants and a café-o-lait before heading off to the city of lights and love. Of course, a flight to Paris is not reasonably in this humble film critic’s budget so I had to opt for the next best thing, PARIS, JE T’AIME, a collection of 18 short films by a variety of international directors. Each piece is named after a different Parisian neighborhood and is a reflection on love. Careful not to over glorify the most powerful and persuasive of all human emotions, PARIS, JE T’AIME explores love at the many stages of its own game. The results are spontaneously romantic and surprisingly consistent. And truly, what better way to express the fleeting nature of love and how a moment can change your life than with a collection of filmed moments.


The beautifully poetic quote above is taken from Tom Tykwer’s Faubourg Saint Denis. True to form, Tykwer (RUN, LOLA, RUN) uses time-lapse photography and repetition to demonstrate the entire cycle of love, from inception to dissolution. Originally shot in 2004 and paired down for this anthology, Faubourg stars Natalie Portman as Francine, an American actress in Paris for a part in a film, and Melchior Beslon as Thomas, a blind man she falls in love with. Here, the blind leads the blind through the most unstable of terrain, where two people consume each other to a point where their lives nearly lose their own existences. As love seems to go from dazzling to dizzying, Tykwer reminds us of the tricks it can play on our minds and the illusions it can create when we stray towards doubt.


Perhaps the most giddily romantic offering comes from Sylvain Chomet’s Tour Eiffel. Choosing the city’s most identifiable attraction for its title, Chomet (LES TRIPLETTES DE BELLEVILLE) gives us a little boy who tells the story of how his parents met and fell in love. His father, a mime (Paul Putner), finds himself falling into one surreal scenario after another and eventually lands himself in jail. This is where he meets the woman who will become the love of his life (Yolande Moreau). Miming has become something of a dying art, if it isn’t already dead. Yet by nature, it is dreamy and untroubled. Miming points its silent finger at the ridiculousness of human behaviour and what but love can make people act more absurd? We might find someone special in the least likely of circumstances if we could just take ourselves a little less seriously.


PARIS, JE T’AIME keeps the flow lively by not always focusing on love between lovers. Three memorable shorts focus on the love between a parent and a child. Walter Salles (MOTORCYCLE DIARIES) has Catalina Sandino Moreno singing lovingly to her child before she leaves him to sing the same song with a distant longing to the child she watches over for her living. Nobuhiro Suwa (UN COUPLE PARFAIT) has Juliette Binoche trying desperately to overcome the emptiness she feels after losing her son. Binoche says very little yet, not surprisingly given her immense talent, her struggle is evident in her face as she learns that love sometimes means letting go. And Alfonso Cuaron (CHILDREN OF MEN) weighs in with one continuous shot of a father (Nick Nolte) and his grown daughter (Sara Martins) walking together for what must be the first time in a long while. We see them only from across the street and we only get close to them as the distance between the two characters narrows to a place of comfort and accepting.


The last short to screen is Alexander Payne’s 14ieme Arrondissement. As usual, Payne (SIDEWAYS) takes an ordinary person and shows us what makes them extraordinary. Carol (Margo Martindale) is another American in Paris. She is there alone and for less time than she would have liked as she has dogs waiting for her at home. She is a plain person with an uneventful life who finds herself in a city that is rich and lush. In beautifully delivered Americanized French, she muses about the sights and how being there makes her feel. This woman spends so much time trying to be happy despite life’s numerous disappointments and as she sits in a city made for lovers, she realizes that she is in fact happy and loves herself more than she knew. She falls in love, if only for perhaps a moment, with life and love itself.


The characters that appear but fleetingly in PARIS, JE T’AIME find themselves at the romantic center of the universe. The moments they share with each other, be it helping someone up after a hard fall or reaching out your hand to another person without touching them or without their knowledge, are the moments that give love its flare and flourish. Outside the city of lovers, it can be easy to miss moments such as these but we must remind ourselves of their significance. It takes but a moment for love to shine through a cloudy sky. You just have to keep your heart open to see it. And if one city can be so abundant with love, one has to believe it can find its way one day to your door.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END

Written by Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio
Directed by Gore Verbinski



Pintel: Slap me thrice and hand me to Mama. It’s Jack!

Have you ever noticed how both good and bad things are said to come in three’s? The month of May at the movies this year does nothing to answer that question but it does take the entire superstition that much further, by making it so when things, good or bad, come in three’s, nothing else comes at all. The big commercial theatre where I saw PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END was playing only three films on its dozen or so screens. This summer’s other high profile third chapters, SPIDERMAN 3 and SHREK 3, joined it. With these three films monopolizing every screen, how can any other film come to matter or register a dent in the consciousness of filmgoers? One could conclude that the theatre is just giving the people what they want but how accurate is that? By the time the third part in a series rolls around, people seem to be tired of the whole thing and just ready for it to be over. Given how much bile has been spilled over all three of the aforementioned films, it appears as though it has become cool to turn on those that have provided so much entertainment in the past. Luckily for Hollywood, the trend has done nothing to stop the money from rolling in.


I didn’t care for PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST. I found it to have had its comic moments but to be overdrawn and tedious at times, lacking the spontaneity and energy of the first film, THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL. As a result, I didn’t have much of an interest in AT WORLD’S END. The PIRATES series falls into a category of trilogy where the second and third installments were not specifically intended when the first was conceived. What was once a complete story must be expanded into a longer series. Some storylines are given back-story while others are stretched so thin that it becomes distracting to actually grasp how everything is connected. In AT WORLD’S END, Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) needs to be brought back from the dead, known here as Davy Jones’ Locker. With a variety of selfish motivations, Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) make the dangerous journey along with their regular crew. Once back, Jack and company must defeat Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander) and his fleet, who intend to rid the world of all pirates. Along the way, a number of other sub plots find some screen time but find themselves ultimately left ashore. Having already seen the first two films, I found it somewhat difficult to piece the muddled puzzle together at times so I can only imagine how lost one would be coming into this film without any previous pirate experience. Overly complex stories are almost inevitable though when you expand a story that was never intended to be expanded to begin with.


The PIRATES series has relied increasingly on visual effects as the series has progressed. While the transitions between pirates and the undead in the first film were sleek and engrossing, the film itself struck with viewers thanks primarily to the wild and unpredictable performance of Johnny Depp. Depp has been just as consistent at being inconsistent in the two latter films but there’s only so much further the character can go. Subsequently, the visual aspects needed to step it up to deliver that which a summer blockbuster is expected to deliver. Back for a third time is director Gore Verbinski, taking a decidedly darker, more surreal approach to the pirates he made famous. When a film opens with mass hangings and the announcement that a number of citizens are being robbed of their fundamental rights, you know that fluff is not about to follow. Only here, it does. What ensues is a ride that bounces back and forth between varying visual motifs that leave the viewer lost at sea. That being said, I don’t think I will forget that close-up of Depp’s nose traveling along the screen, sniffing for a peanut, for a very long time.


It’s hard to say goodbye to anything that has been with you for so long. It’s even harder for studios to imagine never seeing the size of treasure that Jack and crew haul in with each of their adventures. Hence, even as this trilogy comes to its intended close, further pirate plots are being cooked up by studio heads that will likely plow ahead with them with or without their regular cast. That doesn’t stop AT WORLD’S END from ensuring that every possible audience satisfaction is met before the credits role. Characters say their goodbye’s almost as if they were the actors themselves saddened by the end of their own experiences together. The film suddenly seems to be fully aware of its own significance in the pop culture fabric. The problem here is the film is giving itself more credit than it likely deserves as it seems these days that more people flock to trilogy closers out of obligation and not anticipation.

AWAY FROM HER

Written and Directed by Sarah Polley



Grant: Fiona, is there any way you can let this go?
Fiona: If I let it go, it will only hit me harder when I bump into it again.

A couple washes up after dinner. He washes while she dries. They savour the memory of the delicious dinner they just shared. They are smiling and in love after forty-four years together. In a moment of silence, he casually hands her the frying pan he has just cleaned. She dries it with her towel, walks to the freezer and puts it inside. She exits the room as if nothing out of the ordinary has just happened. All he can do is watch, if his intentions are to be sensitive. This is the context in which we are introduced to Grant and Fiona (Gordon Pinsett and Julie Christie) in the first feature film adapted and directed by Canadian actress Sarah Polley, AWAY FROM HER. Polley brings unapologetic honesty and sympathy to the lives of these two characters. After a lifetime together, they will be torn apart by Alzheimer’s. Neither can do anything to stop it. He can only watch her mind disappear while she tries to enjoy the undetermined lucid time she has left. It is Polley’s delicate and respectful hand that guides the viewer to see past the surface of misplaced kitchen apparel and see the longing for tenderness that is had between as it lingers longer than fading memories.


Memory comes in and out in AWAY FROM HER. With the image often filling with white and veering on blurry like a blinding snowstorm, Polley sets the tone from the start. Memory is a hazy concept. Alzheimer’s is a cruel game that has Fiona having difficulty maintaining her short-term memory, like why she left the house or common words, while some of the most painful memories in her life seem like they will never be forgotten. Her story unfolds as she decides to admit herself to a retirement facility so that her husband needn’t be responsible for her. This particular “home” enforces a policy where new residents are not allowed to have any contact with the loved ones they left behind for the first thirty days after they are admitted. When Grant is finally able to return to the residence, it isn’t clear whether Fiona even recognizes him and worse yet, she has found comfort in the company of another man (Michael Murphy). As painful as this reality is, Polley cuts away to another time and place throughout this build, allowing us a glimpse into where Grant will end up as a result of all this change. As a result, the film feels interrupted. It is one of few mistakes made by this novice filmmaker but fortunately not one that makes the film any less painful.


Polley directs three beautifully nuanced performances from her leads. As Grant, Pinsett is bewildered, stubborn and hopeful depending on the moment. Despite all of his frustration, he is constantly searching for understanding and resolve for the memories even he has difficulty letting go of. Olympia Dukakis joins the cast as Marian, the wife of Aubrey, the man Fiona befriends in the residence. She is a tough woman, brass because she has to be. For Grant, she represents what he could have become had it been decided that he would care for his wife himself. Her life is one that was surrendered to supporting her husband through his illness, forcing personal happiness to be removed as a possibility. Naturally, given the nature of the part, it is Christie that pulls the viewer deep into a mind that is falling away. In one scene, Grant brings her home for a day. She marvels at how it was kept so well after all this time. Though the home she is seeing was her own for over twenty years, she looks on it as if it belonged to someone else. The way her eyes take in the surroundings, an environment that she should know intimately, suggests a sense of attachment intrinsically linked with a saddened detachment. She should know this place, these things, and one some level she does. She does not understand why she should feel a sense of familiarity, just that it is so. It is as though memories flood back to her but they aren’t her own.


AWAY FROM HER is a fantastic first film from a talented Canadian actress with great promise as both a perceptive writer and skilled director. It is also a lesson in patience and learning to let go. Not for the viewer but for those onscreen. Grant must always exercise restraint while allowing the love of his life to find solace in another man. After all, what matters most is that she be at peace. As big a task as this is, Fiona must do even more. She must accept that the life she knew is behind her and that the one ahead of her is new, necessary and one that might fade away from her as quickly as it happens to her.

SPIDER-MAN 3

Written by Sam Raimi and Ivan Raimi
Directed by Sam Raimi



Mary Jane Watson: Everybody needs help. Even Spiderman.

As far as I’m concerned, you can drown those pirates at sea and banish that ogre to a land even further away because there’s only one sequel that matters this summer. SPIDERMAN 3 has finally swung through oncoming traffic and in and around the tallest buildings to land in theatres as the flagship film to launch the box office into summer. Legions of Spidey enthusiasts have had their tickets for weeks while critics have been waiting to review the latest installment in one the most successful and well-received film franchises in history. With expectations this high, its hard to imagine how Spidey could possible satisfy anyone fully. Yet despite the increasingly loud whispers of disappointment waiting to welcome SPIDERMAN 3, this critic slash Spidey enthusiast had himself one heck of a web slingin’ time and he’s not afraid to say it.


In the third, and what is sadly not likely the last in the Spiderman series, your friendly neighborhood Spiderman (Tobey Maguire) finds himself on top of the world. New York loves him; Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) loves him; and subsequently, Spidey ends up loving himself a little more than he should. High on his own ego, he decides to make everything perfect in his life and ask MJ to marry him. Simple enough a concept but things get a little sticky when he has to deal with his uncle’s killer escaped from jail, his best friend’s obsession with getting revenge on him for his father’s death, having to compete with a new photographer at the Daily Bugle and MJ’s increasingly disastrous acting career. Oh, wait. I forgot that he also has to deal with The Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) and Venom (Topher Grace), the newest enemies to emerge in New York City, a city where freaks apparently flock to. It’s a lot for one man to handle, let alone one man with super human powers. Ultimately, it proved to be too much for another super human to handle, namely returning director, Sam Raimi. Taking over script duty with his brother Ivan, found a lot of interesting themes like revenge and ego woven into the Spidey web but so much going on leaves so little to fully develop. Scenes that would seem pivotal, like when Venom and Sandman decide to team up, end up feeling rushed while scenes that are entirely disposable, like when Spidey’s alter ego, Peter Parker, finds his “Saturday Night Fever” groove strutting down the streets of NYC, seem to go on forever.


While the first SPIDERMAN film, written by David Koepp (rumoured to be returning for SPIDERMAN 4) brought me to tears more than once, there is plenty to enjoy in SPIDERMAN 3 that allows forgiveness for the script problems. People seem to have forgotten that Spidey is here to entertain us. Sure it would be nice to be affected by the words being spoken as well but when the action is as tight and the special effects as vast as in SPIDERMAN 3, it is a pleasure to tune out for a while and enjoy the ride. With three enemies to fight off at any given moment, Spidey finds himself constantly reevaluating his approach. With the New Goblin (James Franco), Spidey has to fend off a very aggressive attacker that he doesn’t truly want to hurt. The Sandman, who enters and exits in a flurrying sandstorm that is a visual kaleidoscope of grain, is at times an insurmountable force. The fact that Spidey can’t effectively hit him only further shows how much energy is wasted on revenge (as he was the man who actually killed his uncle in his pre-Sandman days). And Venom is just plain frightening. Being under the control of the tar-like substance that transforms cocky photographer, Eddie Brock (Grace), into this fanged fright, amplifies all of your aggressive, negative behavior. For Spidey, fighting Venom is like fighting all the parts of himself that he tries so hard to leave behind.


When SPIDERMAN hit theatres a few in 2002, its energy was infectious. Hopes were high and the goods were delivered. Genuine admiration was formed for the hero but like any hero, people eventually want to tear them down out of jealousy. How quickly we forget the love and allow our expectations to be set so high that no one, not even a man who glides gracefully through the sky, could surmount them. Better than the second, not as good the first, SPIDERMAN 3 is falling prey to the audience’s need to be constantly wowed with something bigger and better that eclipses accomplishments that are already awesome. Sure Raimi got himself tangled up in his own overcomplicated web but there is no one who can spin it like he can. And if Raimi, Maguire and Dunst don’t return for future installments, you’ll all be wishing you hadn’t squashed this spider so quickly.

WAITRESS

Written and Directed by Adrienne Shelley



Jenna: I was addicted to saying things and having them matter to someone.

Somewhere, someone is making a pie that is all their own. They have been to the grocery store; they have chosen the best ingredients. They have a recipe in their head that might have once been their mother’s or might have come to them while they waited for the bus. And though there may be situations or circumstances in their lives that may be keeping them from the happiness they deserve, for the time it will take to prepare their warm treat, they will be focused on the act of creation itself. That same kind of care is baked into writer/director Adrienne Shelley’s Sundance darling, WAITRESS. Like the film’s heroine, Jenna (Keri Russell) who bakes to escape from her dreary, hopeless life, Shelley ensures that WAITRESS is the result of blending all the right ingredients, not over baking and gently sifting in just the right amount of love whenever necessary.


If WAITRESS were itself a pie, it would taste like the perfect combination of different flavours coming to life on your tongue one after the other instead of all at once. It would be rich, not overly sweet. Realism gives this romantic comedy its affluence. Jenna plays a waitress who works thankless hours at a pie shop outside of town. She is married to a controlling, abusive husband (played by a humanely needy Jeremy Sisto) and has just discovered that she is pregnant. She thought her life was going nowhere before but the baby news shut the oven door for good on whatever dreams she still held on to. Russell plays Jenna like a woman resigned to her fate. She is not necessarily unhappy in her day-to-day interactions; she merely does not believe that any good will come to her in her life. None has come thus far so why should she expect anything different from the future? She is not a pessimist but a pragmatist. While the dead-end career/deadbeat husband angle has been played out before, Shelley makes sure to avoid cliché with a sensitive script that allows for her characters to make sensible choices rather than typical ones that define the genre.


The relationship that is perhaps treated most delicately and also becomes the central relationship in the film is the one that forms between Jenna and her new gynecologist, Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion). After an initially uncomfortable meeting, the two start an affair that finds Jenna following her pregnancy very closely with what seems like weekly visits to her doctor. Affairs are very tricky to sell on film as the romance has the extra challenge of overshadowing the innocent partners that are left at home and the undue hurt that is caused to them. In Jenna’s case, the woman has got it so rough; you want her to have this happiness. What value do the vows she made to her husband have when he essentially manipulated her into marrying him in the first place so that he would never be alone? Russell makes it boisterously enjoyable to watch Jenna realize that she can actually make choices that control her own destiny. They may not be ideal but they can bring smiles to her face again. And as for Dr. Pomatter and his involvement, Shelley wisely chooses not to show his wife until much later on or explain away why he is cheating. In the end, it isn’t his story and all that matters is that he’s there and he sees Jenna for the wondrous woman she is.


WAITRESS is easy to fall in love with. After all, isn’t there a little waitress in all of us? To varying degrees, we all wish that something about our lives had turned out differently. If we’re lucky there are elements that we are happy with but there is always going to be something we don’t feel we’ve explored to its fullest or opportunities we feel we’ve been cheated out of. Let this movie and its creation be a lesson to us all to enjoy the moments where we feel happy just making a pie, as those are the moments that matter and you never know what life has in mind for you next.

Before she could witness the critical success and audience reaction to her film, a construction worker killed writer/director Adrienne Shelley over a noise dispute in her building.

SHARKWATER

Written and Directed by Rob Stewart


I had an awfully difficult time getting anyone to see this movie with me. Apparently, a lot of people have issues with sharks. This apprehension was part of the original inspiration for filmmaker, Rob Stewart, to make SHARKWATER. He had been taught his entire life to fear sharks, as have we. The media vilifies sharks every so often to remind us that they are not our friends. It isn’t safe to get in the water after all. Haven’t you all seen that movie with sharks where they eat all the innocent people? It’s as if we have never fully recovered from JAWS. In his career as an underwater photographer, Stewart discovered that these fears are almost entirely unfounded. He could swim with the sharks and get close enough to touch them if he showed them that he did not fear them and that they had no reason to fear him. And so he set out to make a documentary that would demystify our notions that sharks are perversely obsessed with the killing of human beings. What he would discover is that we as humans have already launched a full-scale retaliation against our sworn enemy.


Stewart’s experience as an underwater photographer does not go to waste in this breathtaking film. Stewart’s ocean is one of tranquility and warmth. Over time, it has become his sanctuary and he presents the environment to his audience with the same feeling of security that he claims to get from it. Though he was once very much like a fish out of water, Stewart has found a new home in the ocean and his neighbors don’t seem to mind him at all. The imagery of SHARKWATER was what originally drew me to the film and it does not disappoint. Schools of fish of so many different varieties swim past and mingle with each other that the screen becomes a mélange of colour and movement that is at times dizzying and hypnotic. And though those same fish scatter when the sharks enter the frame, Stewart does not. Instead, he swims towards them and in one instant you see how two species can forget their supposed feud between them by letting their fear of the unknown fall away. For a moment, two worlds collide to create an unexpected harmony.


This only makes what follows all the more painful. Stewart’s shoot took an unforeseen turn when he joined the crew of a militant oceanic watchdog ship that makes it their mission to ensure international treaties protecting the rights of ocean dwellers are upheld. Before long, Stewart and the crew are involved in an international scandal over shark-finning. In some countries, like Japan, shark fin soup is considered a delicacy that when served affirms one’s social status. It is popular at massive weddings and can cost upwards of a hundred dollars in a restaurant. According to Stewart, shark fin trading on the black market is only second to drug trafficking. Although the statistic seems a bit skewed, there are still billions of dollars involved in the trade. For the first time in the 450 billion years that sharks have been on this planet, there are certain species of sharks that are facing serious threats of extinction. Once again, human beings plow through other life in pursuit of the almighty dollar without acknowledging the long term ramifications. See, the planet consists of two-thirds water and this water contains a lot of plankton that produces 70% of the planet’s oxygen. The ocean is filled with fish that survive on plankton. The shark is the ocean’s leading predator of these plankton eaters. If we kill off all the sharks, then the other fish will have free reign over the plankton, which means a diminished production of oxygen for us to breathe. Why do we always assume that our actions have no consequence? And why do we always put money ahead of preservation? You can’t spend money if you can’t breathe.


All of this ecological unrest for soup. Shark fishers remove the fins of the shark, which make up 5% of the shark’s body, and throw the shark back into the ocean to die. Stewart and his crew go undercover into the illegal industry to give weight to their accusations and, as you stare out at rooftops covered with shark fins drying in the sun, you cannot help but be horrified at the sheer size of the operation. SHARKWATER invites you to make friends with the enemy and to see how we as humans are so much worse to sharks than they are to us. The mirror is turned to expose who is the more evil predator and its mouth is not home to sharp jagged teeth but rather to a smiling face sipping down its soup. Sadly, SHARKWATER will not be seen by as many as it should as people prefer their sharks as foe instead of friend. Bring on JAWS 5! Quite frankly, I consider SHARKWATER to be a hell of a lot scarier.

YEAR OF THE DOG

Written and Directed by Mike White


“Animals are like us; they live for love.
And if you have too many of them,
then there isn’t enough love to go around.”

Dog people. When I think of dog people, I think of my friend, Lloyd. He’s got this puppy, Andy. Andy’s got his own personal walker, play dates on weekends and some pieces of his wardrobe are more stylish than mine. Despite being the dog that has everything, the most important thing he has is Lloyd. If you spend any time with this twosome, it’s hard to tell who loves who more. Some people say that owning a dog is selfish, that having another living being depend on you and give you nothing but love in return only serves the owner’s ego. I guess these people forgot about the natural human need to nurture. I suppose these people also have not had the chance to see Mike White’s YEAR OF THE DOG. White, writer of indie faves CHUCK AND BUCK and THE GOOD GIRL, makes his directorial debut with the simple tale of one woman, whose tightly wound life of disappointment unravels after the death of her dog, a beautiful beagle named Pencil.


Before Pencil’s unexpected passing, Peggy (Molly Shannon) spent her days with a permanent smile on her face. Whether she was at the office comforting her boss (Josh Pais) while his neuroses got stuck in spin over office politics, or at the mall listening to her colleague (Regina King) yammer on about her boyfriend’s commitment issues or even walking on eggshells while visiting her brother and his overprotective wife (Thomas McCarthy and Laura Dern), Peggy never frowned. Sure, she never found her dream job or got married or had any kids of her own. But why should she let that bother her? She has her health, a home and Pencil. Finding herself without Pencil though finds Peggy feeling lost. The beauty of White’s script is that Peggy is not suddenly lost but only suddenly realizing that she has been for years. Anchoring this decent into the depth of an internal fear that has been avoided for years is Shannon. As Peggy, she never fully abandons her comedic luminescence but shows new sides of her range, including fragility, determination and sparks of buried hope. She sits one night in a passenger seat at the end of a date. Her suitor (John C. Reilly) asks without tact if she has ever been married. The woman who answers no longer has the strength or the desire to pretend anymore. She simply stutters through an evasive response and stumbles as she exits the car.


Pencil’s death leads to her meeting Newt (Peter Saarsgard), a dog trainer that coaches her how to tame her newly adopted dog, Valentine, while unknowingly waking a part of her heart thought long to be dead. Meeting people is easy. Getting to know people is tricky. Navigating a relationship through the hope and apprehension that comes after years of potentially difficult experiences can be more than enough to make you run home to your dog. For Newt and Peggy, neither has had much success with other human beings. Other human beings are complicated and come with their own set of expectations. Animals on the other hand, want very clear things from you, like food and attention, and, in return, give you unqualified love and admiration. You don’t have to think about what to say to a dog when there is an awkward silence. There is no experience to be had with a dog that mirrors the dance between two people who are trying to figure out whether this is or isn’t the right time to kiss the other person. And while all of this can be infuriating, it should not be forgotten that this is an excitement that cannot be had with a dog.


White’s script works because he does not categorize the characters but rather allows them to grow into themselves, no matter whether that self fits into society’s mold or not. As a film however, YEAR OF THE DOG, is occasionally just as awkward as its characters. White’s direction and cinematic approach are often static and flat, ultimately taking away from the warmth of the whole. Thankfully, Peggy’s late life journey towards embracing her true self is so winningly portrayed by Shannon that the film’s cinematic limitations never go from flaw to fault. By the time she realizes that her own compartmentalized cubicle life bares its own resemblance to the life of a dog in a pound, she sees that it is also just as wrong for her as for the dogs. After all, dog people are people too and if there's anyone out there who should give you unconditional love, it's yourself.

GRINDHOUSE

Written and Directed by
Robert Rodriguez
and
Quentin Tarantino


Cherry Darling: That’s the problem with goals.
They become the thing you talk about instead of
the thing you do.


Cult favorites, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez are not talkers; they are doers. If they want to recreate exploitation films popularized in the 1970’s for today’s masses, they don’t just hang around talking about how cool they would be if they did something like that; they do it. GRINDHOUSE packs more blood, boobs and banalities than you can shake a severed limb at into two feature-length films that run back to back. Despite being packaged as two films from the same genre, Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror” and Tarantino’s “Death Proof” offer very different approaches in their homage to excessive sex, violence and gore. One throws story to the blood-soaked floor and spits on it, cluttering the screen with an abundance of characters, sub-plots, political insinuations and zombies galore. The other is all about fast cars and even faster talking women. Both films were aged to simulate the feel of the “Grindhouse” era, complete with added dust and scratches as well as missing reels thrown in for authenticity. And after three hours of vain indulgence, neither film rises above its flaws to become the ultimate cheesy experience it both should and could be.


Up first is Rodriguez’s zombie flick, “Planet Terror”. It isn’t fair to criticize a “Grindhouse” film for it’s plot, even less so in the case of a zombie movie. Regardless, Rodriguez crams so many people and plights into this fright film that the focus is mostly scattered, at times so much so that it takes away from the impending onslaught of zombies bent on taking over humanity. The acting is often horrible; the scenarios are often ludicrous. Ordinarily, this would be the downfall of any film but here it is expected. It is functional for the most part, good for some laughs, groans and nausea, but the fun that Rodriguez is clearly trying to have is often stunted by his efforts to be loyal to the genre. There is so much time spent attempting to recreate a long forgotten feel, that the action is left floundering. His own talent as a filmmaker further undermines Rodriguez’s mimicry of style. The careful framing and calculated composition is often too good to be believable as the B-movie the style is structuring the film to be. Still, Rodriguez deserves praise simply for casting Tarantino himself as a biochemically infected soldier, finding the perfect role for Quentin’s unique acting style. And by unique, I mean bad.


The moment “Death Proof” begins, Tarantino puts Rodriguez to shame. Applying similar visual effects to the film stock, Quentin has crafted a modern take on the “Grindhouse” style rather than attempt a film that feels it was taken from the era. The result is a smoother, more sophisticated aesthetic that is only further strengthened by social implications. “Death Proof” tells the tale of Stunt Man Mike (an energized and exciting Kurt Russell) and his fetish for killing beautiful babes in high-speed collisions. The ladies he targets are nowhere near helpless. In fact, they are strong and smart, if not somewhat naïve. Tarantino’s genius shines through his approach to showcase female empowerment in a genre designed to rob them of all power as well bring the filmmaker’s own perverse gaze to light in the eyes of his antagonist. Just like Rodriguez though, Tarantino trips his own pace. He does so by over-indulging the sound of his written word. One too many dialogue-heavy scenes slows the chase to a dangerously boring speed. The girls (Rose McGowan, Rosario Dawson, etc.) wrap their luscious lips around Tarantino’s snappy quips but this is the last thing you want when you’ve already been watching for over two and a half hours. A drag race movie should never drag.


GRINDHOUSE can be a lot of fun when it isn’t taking itself so seriously. It is broken up by hilarious mock previews, again crafted to fit the period, by directors like Eli Roth (HOSTEL) and Rob Zombie (HOUSE OF A 1000 CORPSES), arguably a director making modern day “Grindhouse” pictures without going out of his way to label them as such. The features themselves though are then bogged down by auteurs trying to be amateurs. In fact, it might have actually been more fun if two such meticulous filmmakers weren’t at its helm. Perhaps then, it would have actually captured the amateur feel it was designed too. For all its pretentious good intentions, GRINDHOUSE is never neither good nor bad enough to be great.

THE NAMESAKE

Written by Sooni Tarapolevala
Directed by Mira Nair


Ashoke Ganguli: My grandfather always said that’s what books are for, to travel without moving an inch.

THE NAMESAKE is a true treasure. It is a film that honours long-established convention and meaning by maintaining its own traditional approach. All too often, filmmakers take sides when telling a story about a culture taken out of context. Either the old is just plain too old for its own good or the new is entirely empty. Director Mira Nair begins this story of one family’s history by drawing her own conclusions but allows the film to learn the error of its ways at the same pace as its characters. The Ganguli family must learn to meet each other in the middle of its own extremes. Once there, they must learn to breathe soft and slow to allow both sides to hear each other and learn from what they are hearing. By finding a similar breathing pattern to establish its pacing, THE NAMESAKE is able to criticize and question the Americanization of other cultures while never losing focus on what matters, the experience and heart of the Ganguli family.


Giving history its due, THE NAMESAKE opens in Calcutta. A young girl by the name of Ashima (played by Tabu) returns home from singing lessons to find a male suitor waiting to ask for her hand in marriage. She does not run from what is expected of her nor does she go towards it blindly and obediently. Instead, she approaches with caution and an open mind. Before she even meets Ashoke (Irfan Khan), she is drawn to the exotic possibilities he can offer her when she finds his American shoes by the door. She slips the shoes on, seemingly trying to feel what kind of man wears these shoes and what kind of weight wears them down. It is a simple moment, one of many to follow, that both gives the film its charm and connects Ashima and Ashoke to each other. Theirs is a marriage arranged in the most traditional sense yet a great love grows from this beginning. The newlyweds travel to New York to start their life together while getting to know both each other and their new surroundings. The tenderness of their relationship is a moving testament to the importance of listening and comprehension.


The wide spectrum of colour that runs rampant through Calcutta is reduced to nothing in New York. The city is covered in snow and only the drab concrete manages to poke through. Before long, Ashoke and Ashima have their first of two children, Gogol (Kal Penn). With his birth, the central conflict is also born. As Gogol grows older, he grows further away from his heritage but more importantly, he grows further away from his parents. All families face these kinds of challenges. In the case of the Ganguli family, it is easy for the children to rebel against their cultural backgrounds as it is the most obvious target that will certainly hurt their parents. The parents had to adjust to the American way of life while the children were born and raised within it. It is difficult to reconcile the differences, which leads to the feeling that they are barely a family at times.


THE NAMESAKE is about healing and understanding. It does not focus on any one family member more than any other but rather on their shared similar experiences of happiness and loss. And though its visual basis is specific, its messages are much more universal. Never letting go of the past will never allow you to see your future. Still, refusing to acknowledge the past will leave your future just as hollow. If you’re not too stubborn though and you realize that everything that comes before you makes you who you are today and who you can be tomorrow, then you will learn to resolve both past and future to enjoy your present and the family you are fortunate to have surround you.

REIGN OVER ME

Written and Directed by Mike Binder


Charlie Fineman: I don’t like this.
I don’t like remembering.

Sometimes it takes a catastrophe to shut a man down and sometimes it happens little by little over time and no one knows until its already happened. REIGN OVER ME is the story of two such men who find themselves in similar positions despite the drastically different paths that got them there. Alan Johnson (Don Cheadle) is a successful New York dentist, who has his own practice, a gorgeous apartment and a family that loves him. He is coasting comfortably on his success until he happens to cross his college roommate on the street one day. Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler) doesn’t do any coasting, except on his motorized scooter. Charlie lost his wife, three daughters and family dog on September 11th, 2001. They were on one of the planes that crashed into the towers and he was on his way to meet them at the airport when it happened. Charlie had his life taken from him in one moment while Alan has let his slip through his fingers over the course of his entire life.


Writer/Director, Mike Binder (THE UPSIDE OF ANGER), has placed all the elements carefully to allow for these two men to heal each other only he has forgotten to connect them or give them any personality of their own. The film itself does its own coasting as it presumes that its supposed bravery to deal with post-traumatic stress experienced by those touched directly by the events of September 11th is original enough to sustain itself. The presumption is that anyone with a soul will allow their heart to go out to this man because they can still feel the pain from that day. I have a soul and I still feel the pain but my heart doesn’t automatically go out to a man just because you tell me he’s ruined. Even Sandler, who showed great dramatic promise in PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE, relies too heavily on audience expectation, allowing his Dylan-esque mess of a haircut and inability to sit still to show his hurt. The alternative is to show what Charlie went through that led him to this place in his life but no one needs to be bombarded with that imagery again. Only, the planes crashing into the towers was just the beginning of Charlie’s experience. The emptiness that followed is what specifically hollowed Charlie Fineman and there is no trace of that pain in the film until it is too late.


Binder also had a difficult time balancing out the two separate experiences of his characters. As Charlie has the showier, more intense trauma to deal with, Alan’s lessons to learn become an afterthought. The divide is uneven but I almost wish Alan’s plight had been given little to no thought. It is both tired and tedious to tell of a man who achieved all of his goals but somehow eluded happiness. It is then also all too simple and increasingly irritating to blame these problems on the wife. Alan’s wife (Jada Pinkett Smith) makes him dinner, wants to speak openly with him and spend time together learning new things. She is making an effort and doing her part and all he can do is resent her for it because it’s a lot easier than facing the fact that he is responsible for his own happiness. Helping Charlie becomes a convenient way to avoid both his own problems and his wife. Of course, he learns that his wife is not to blame for his dissatisfaction but you know that he will from the moment you see there is a problem. There is no other solution that could lead both the film and the character to resolution. In fact, ultimate resolution is what removes all urgency from the film. Charlie and Alan meet and there is no question that they will learn from each other. So obvious is the point of this film that it becomes entirely predictable.


REIGN OVER ME opens and closes with shots of the streets of New York City. As the people scurry through the maze, it is obvious that there are stories of pain and loss from September 11th still waiting to be told. This one however never quite feels real. Instead, it feels calculated and constructed which is made even sadder as it misses the emotional pay off it seems so bent on getting. Charlie doesn’t want to remember that day. He doesn’t want to remember everything he once had, that he was once happy without having to try to be. He is hardly alone though. Many have tried to forget that day and the wounds that were suffered. I seriously doubt that REIGN OVER ME is the way they will want to remember again.

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